Category: Folk

Ok so over this four day weekend it has been very frustrating – see my main computer is Windows Vista and it does not recognize my mp3 player as a Sansa View. It will connect as a mass storage device but as a mass storage device you can not transfer music from Rhapsody. Usually my Sansa will connect to our other computer which is XP but this weekend it would not so I was not able to transfer any music and was not able to sit at the computer and listen to whole albums!  So I made a list from the Roots Music Chart of some names that were new to me and gave them brief listens to see if they appealed to me at all! First up was Ginny Hawker and her album After It’s Gone . I listened to the first two songs and felt that the music just wasn’t me. Second up was Rita Hosking and her album Come Sunrise music sounded pretty good some nice fiddle and dobro on the title track and the vocals were nice – this is one that I will come back and listen to more closely. Album three was The Conjurer by Dana Cooper – another one that sounds pretty good I like the vocals, music good nice harp – lyrics sound good another one that will get an extended listen. Album four is I Speak Because I Can by Laura Marling sounds a little different not really me but maybe, but not likely. The final album was Made of Stars by Sally Spring. This one is in the middle too. Seems a little slow for me but her voice sounds pretty good another maybe but maybe more yes than no. Read More

So tonight I listened to some of the while maybe not forgotten, at least some vinyl albums that I haven’t listened to in a long while. First up is an album when it was released in 1970 was just called Kristofferson but by the time I bought it in 1971 it had been renamed Me and Bobby McGee (I can’t imagine why?).  Anyway, that album had a lot of songs that had been recorded by others including Janis Joplin, Ray  Price and Roger Miller and Ray Stevens but I didn’t listen to those performers (except for Joplin) so I worn this album out! What a great collection of songs,  including “To Beat the Devil”, (always a favorite), “Help Me Make it through the Night”, “Just The Other Side of Nowhere” “For the Good Times” and probably my favorite “Sunday Morning Coming Down”.   My favorite line from that song: Read More

From the folks at The Alternate Root an online source for Roots Music comes a free sampler of songs for social change. The CD includes one of my favorite songs for change Arlon Bennett’s “Be the Change” from his album Summer’s Voice. Check out his music great stuff! Here is there press release from The Alternate Root website: Read More

So a while back I came across Ernie Hendrikson’s name on the Roots Music Report Folk Chart and downloaded his first album Down the Road. I listened to it a couple of times and then it became part of the random shuffle on my mp3 player.  I soon found that whenever I heard a song I didn’t quite recognize but liked,  I’d check to see who it was and sure enough it would be Ernie and soon songs liked “Seasons Change” and “Bad Mixed Up Woman” were recognizable as favorites! So the other day, I downloaded his latest album Walking with Angels and I won’t have trouble remembering his songs again because I am a fan! This album works all the way around for me good vocals, great lyrics and good picking. Henrickson a native of Cuba City  Wisconsin grew up in Rockford, Illinois and now calls Chicago home. He self produced his first CD but for this CD he brought in the legendary producer and guitarist Bo Ramsey (Lucinda Williams, Greg Brown) and for me that move paid off,  as I like the production on this a little bit better than the first album.  He also but in a great lineup of musicians, including Bo, Jon Penner on bass (Junior Brown), Steve Hayes on drums (Greg Brown), Brian Wilkie on pedal steel and guitar (Alison Krauss), and Bob Black on banjo (Bill Monroe) and like I said the playing is great. Read More